


A Different Magic

by Tedronai



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4726505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tedronai/pseuds/Tedronai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Egwene and Mat wake up somewhere they shouldn't be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Souvraya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Souvraya/gifts).



> The premise could have used ten times the word count for a proper treatment, but that would take literally forever. I hope this isn't terribly disappointing~
> 
> Also, titles are the bane of my existence.

Egwene knew something was wrong the moment she woke up. Her dreams had been… silent, that was the only word she could think of. She was used to telling the important dreams from ordinary ones even if she couldn’t always explain them, and the feeling she woke up to was similar to how she felt after a significant dream but she couldn’t remember actually Dreaming anything. That was worrying enough. The sight as she opened her eyes was even more so.

This was _not_ her tent in the Aiel camp. For a moment she entertained the possibility that she had for some reason decided to sleep in the Palace but she dismissed the idea; she remembered going to sleep in her own bed in the girls’ dormitory—

_Wait a second._

She remembered going to sleep in her tent, in the camp, with the Wise Ones and their apprentices in their tents around hers… But somehow she _also_ thought she remembered going to sleep in this bed. In a way it reminded her of her Accepted test; there, too, she had remembered things that had never happened, had known that things must have happened to lead her to those scenarios even if the details had eluded her. If this was anything like the Accepted test — had somebody been interfering with the _ter’angreal_ Moiraine had brought from Rhuidean? was the entire camp stuck in a vision like this? — it would be safest to go along with it. The way back would show itself eventually. She hoped.

 

She got up, dressed in the unfamiliar and not a little strange clothes laid beside the bed as though she’d done it hundreds of times before. On some level that was not quite memory, she thought she had. Almost hesitantly she tried to embrace _saidar_ and found, to her profound relief, that the True Source was still there.

A look in the mirror told her that she was… younger, not much but enough to notice; scrawnier, as though she had not yet finished growing into her womanly shape. The Women’s Circle wouldn’t have let her braid her hair yet, back home. But of course, fifteen was not a woman grown, not in the Two Rivers or England.

 _England._ The name surfaced from the depths of her not-quite-memories…

“Egwene?” the voice of Hermione Granger disrupted her thoughts. “Are you alright?”

Egwene turned to look at the girl occupying the bed next to hers. “I’m fine,” she replied.

The other girl didn’t look entirely convinced, but didn’t pry further. “Come on, we don’t want to miss breakfast!”

 

Egwene followed Hermione through the not-quite-familiar, not-quite-unfamiliar hallways of Hogwarts from the Gryffindor Tower to the Great Hall. She found herself recognising faces, connecting them with names as though she knew them; greeting some with a smile and a friendly wave, others with a cool look or a scowl. It was… mildly disconcerting, even though she thought she knew what was going on.

 

They reached the Great Hall and headed for the Gryffindor table. More familiar faces lined the table already… With something of a shock she realised that one of them was more familiar than the others. There, between two ginger Weasleys, sat Mat Cauthon, or a 15-year-old version of him, looking as though he was going to fall asleep over his porridge bowl. _If Mat is here… who else might be?_ But a quick scan of the Great Hall didn’t reveal more people that she knew from both realities.

If seeing Mat was a surprise to Egwene, it was nothing compared to Mat’s reaction upon seeing her. He dropped his spoon and stared at her as though she’d suddenly grown a second head or something. “You!”

Others were now looking at them curiously, no doubt hoping for entertainment. Egwene had to think fast. “If you’re talking about that cauldron thing, _we can talk about it later,_ ” she replied, trying to emphasise the last part, praying that Mat would catch on.

For a moment it looked like he’d press for answers right here and now, but then he nodded. “Yeah, whatever,” he said, affecting indifference. “Just make sure I get it back by the next potions class or Snape will have my head and _I’ll_ have _yours_.” He seemed slightly bewildered at his own words, but covered it quickly by shoving a spoonful of porridge into his mouth.

Egwene silently blessed Mat Cauthon’s quick wit as she focused on her own breakfast. Hermione raised a questioning eyebrow and she quickly made up something about borrowing Mat’s cauldron and not being able to return it because of accidentally turning it bright violet, earning a round of giggles and suggestions that she should just leave it that way to see Snape’s reaction.

 

* * *

 

Mat went through the day in something of a daze. He wasn’t alone here. Where ever here was; _England_ honestly didn’t tell him anything. Neither did the map that floated from somewhere among his jumble of memories when he tried to think about England. That wasn’t even what the bloody continent looked like! Unless he was suddenly getting memories from all the way before the Breaking… He supposed that was possible, if not exactly what he wanted, but it didn’t explain why he was _in_ such a memory now or what Egwene was doing there with him.

 

He didn’t get to talk with her alone until after Transfiguration, and then her explanation almost made him wish he hadn’t. “You mean you’ve done this before?” he asked. “For your Aes Sedai stuff?”

“Not this exactly,” she replied, sounding impatient. “I don’t _know_ if this is anything like it, if there even was a _ter’angreal_ involved, but it’s one explanation and this has a similar… feel. You remember things you shouldn’t, too, don’t you?”

Mat gave a short, slightly hoarse laugh. Oh, she had no idea. “Yes,” he replied. “How do we get out of here?” he went on. “In your Aes Sedai thing, how did you get out?”

Egwene gave an exasperated sigh, but somehow he thought she wasn’t being as confident as she wanted to appear. “Use those memories,” she said, ignoring his questions. “Don’t draw attention to yourself, you know, to the fact that you’re not _from here_.” She seemed to hesitate. “And if you see a… a shimmering arc or a gate or a door, and you hear something about the way back appearing only once… go. Through the arc, or gate, or whatever. Don’t miss it.”

He blinked, but nodded slowly. “Sure. Whatever you say.” And then they had no more time to talk because they had to hurry to the Herbology class.

 

* * *

 

That evening Mat stayed in the Gryffindor common room after Egwene had gone to the girls’ dormitory. He wasn’t the only one; Hermione Granger was knitting by the fireplace, and the Weasley twins seemed to be demonstrating something or another to a small crowd by the windows. After a while, Ron Weasley detached himself from the crowd, glanced at Hermione but clearly decided against going to talk to her and headed towards Mat.

“You alright mate?” Ron asked. “You seemed a bit… off… today.”

Mat opened his mouth to assure that yes, he was fine, but what came out was, “Was I here last year?”

The other boy frowned at him. “Yeah, why wouldn’t you have been?” But he did seem a bit disturbed by something. “I mean… You must have been, right?”

Mat shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just that… Did we used to talk? What was I doing last year? Do you just know I was here, or do you actually remember me being here?”

“What the hell are you on about?” Ron asked, but Mat could see that he was considering his words. Mat waited in silence, until finally Ron spoke again. “You know what, you’re right. I don’t remember you from last year, or any year. I _know_ you must have been here, I _know_ we’ve been friends for four years, but I have no memory of where you were when all the shit with the Triwizard Tournament was going down, or…” He looked around, bewildered, and Mat was pretty sure his own expression was similar. “Bloody hell.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Mat muttered.

Silence fell again. Mat felt awkward having brought the subject up, but not nearly as awkward as he might have. The fact that Ron recognised that there was something off about the situation helped immensely. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Ron had just looked at him like he was out of his mind and gone on to relate all the wild adventures they’d got up to together in the past school years.

 

It was probably the silence that eventually drew Hermione’s attention. “Are you two trying to tell me you’re done with your homework?” she remarked, pausing her knitting. “Because I don’t believe it for a second.”

Mat and Ron looked at each other. There were several things Mat would have rather been doing — he didn’t want to find out just how well he knew whatever it was that he’d supposedly been studying here — but he supposed it was pointless to hope that he might wake up back in the real world in the morning. If he was still here tomorrow, he’d probably want to have his homework done. Ron seemed to agree on the last point and they got their writing things out and started working on their essays in sullen silence. Mat found himself wishing he knew Ron in the real world. He was sure they would have been friends. After a while, Harry Potter stumbled in through the portrait hole, instantly drawing Ron and Hermione’s attention, and Mat took the opportunity to decide that his essay was finished and head to bed.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, he was still there. He got through the day somehow without attracting undue attention, unless one counted that one incident in the Potions class where he tossed a rat’s liver at Draco Malfoy and lost fifteen points from Gryffindor. He wasn’t sure, but he thought Professor Snape kept frowning at him in a puzzled manner for the rest of the class, and he didn’t stick around afterwards to find out. He did know that Egwene spent the same rest of the class throwing him dirty looks over her cauldron.

 

That weekend was a Hogsmeade weekend and, trudging towards the village after Ron, Hermione, Harry and Egwene, Mat found that he was actually looking forward to the afternoon. That gate or whatever that Egwene had been talking about didn’t seem to be appearing anywhere in Hogwarts, so maybe it would be waiting in the village. Or if not, just being able to forget studying for a while was a welcome thing. Back in the real world, or at least in the Two Rivers, education consisted of parents or older siblings teaching children to read; there was none of this sitting in classrooms for hours on end and Mat was distinctly glad for that. Now, if only he could get back there to enjoy his freedom from formal education…

He glanced to the left — and nearly tripped over his own feet. He narrowly avoided crashing into Ron, who sidestepped gracefully and stuck out a hand to steady him. “Careful— Hey? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

“Maybe I did,” Mat muttered. On the other side of the street, staring right back at him, had been Padan Fain.

“Oh?” Ron didn’t sound overly concerned, only curious. Of course, ghosts were much more commonplace here. “What kind of a ghost?”

Mat shook his head. “I didn’t mean an actual ghost. Bad phrasing.” He hesitated, but if Padan Fain was here, people needed to be warned. “I saw someone I know,” he said in a low voice. “Someone who _shouldn’t be here_ , like me I mean. And he’s danger—”

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Egwene cut him off with a furious hiss. Alarmed, Mat stared at her, and of course the spectacle attracted the attention of Harry and Hermione as well. Egwene glared at everyone equally for a moment. “I need a word with Cauthon, if you three don’t mind.”

Harry merely nodded distractedly and Hermione raised her eyebrows but didn’t seem as though she wanted to argue, but Ron looked at Mat for confirmation that he wanted to be left alone with Egwene. Grateful for the gesture, Mat nodded. “I’ll catch up in a sec!”

 

Once they were alone, Egwene rounded on Mat again. “Please tell me I heard wrong and you haven’t actually told Ron Weasley about us!”

“I haven’t,” Mat said, truthfully. He had only spoken about himself. “I never mentioned you. And I haven’t told him anything, really. He only needed a little nudge to figure out that something wasn’t right.” He sighed as Egwene’s expression grew steadily more chilly. “Look. We have some memories of this place, right?” He barely waited for her to nod. “But they’re not actual memories. We just know things, but we don’t remember anything real. Like… what we were doing last year. Or do you?” he asked.

Egwene shook her head, now looking thoughtful again.

“It’s the same way with them,” Mat went on hurriedly. “Only in reverse. They don’t remember things about us. Or at least Ron, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same for them all. They know we’ve been here every year, but they won’t remember ever talking to us or hanging out with us. They’re bound to figure it out eventually.”

Egwene was silent for so long that Mat was sure she was going to come up with some reason why he was wrong… but then she nodded slowly. “You’re right,” she said. “I guess we… I guess we can tell them the truth.”

For some reason, getting her to admit that he was right didn’t feel as much like a victory as he might have expected.

 

A while — and a lot of explaining — later, the five of them were sitting in the Three Broomsticks, drinking butterbeer in thoughtful silence. Hermione and Harry had discovered that, like Ron, they had no real memories of either Egwene or Mat before yesterday.

“So who’s the man you were telling Ron about?” Hermione asked finally.

Everyone looked at Mat. “I knew him as Padan Fain,” he replied. “He’s… well, a Darkfriend, and you can probably figure out from the name that they’re not people you want to know.”

“Like Death Eaters,” Ron said.

“Kind of like Death Eaters, yeah,” Mat replied. Did every world have their own Darkfriends? The thought was depressing. “Anyway. We’ve no idea what Fain is doing here — well, we’ve no idea what we are doing here either — but he’s really, really dangerous and I feel we should warn more people about him but I’m not sure how.”

“He’s not going to get into Hogwarts,” Hermione said in what was probably meant to be a reassuring voice. Somehow the reassurance of a fifteen-year-old didn’t do much.

“Hermione’s right,” Harry agreed, although he sounded slightly less certain about it. “But let’s keep an eye out anyway. We’ll alert the DA… of course we can’t tell them he’s a devil worshipper from another world,” he added, “but we’ll think of something.”

 

* * *

 

Fain’s description was passed around at the next DA meeting. Mat and Egwene let Harry do the talking; the official story was that he was a Death Eater Harry had seen last summer when Voldemort had been resurrected. It made a lot more sense than drawing extra attention to either Mat or Egwene, and thankfully the others seemed to take the threat seriously. Mat wasn’t sure if it was still seriously enough, but he’d done all he could to warn them.

He didn’t have time to dwell on the thought, however, because practising the shielding charm took most of his attention. To his surprise, Egwene didn’t have a much easier time of it. She still mastered the spell before him, but he would have thought she’d get the hang of it right away seeing as she did something very similar to magic in the real world. When he made a comment about it, though, she only rolled her eyes and said something about _saidar_ not being _magic_ , but to Mat they were close enough.

 

* * *

 

Nearly a week passed without an incident — well, at least without a Fain-related incident. There were incidents and then there were _incidents_. The Quidditch practise was terrible to even watch, Umbridge was terrible, Snape was terrible, and the amount of homework every teacher saw fit to pile upon them just might be the worst of all. Egwene barely had time to worry about Fain or getting back to the real world because she was too exhausted to think most of the time. She was impressed that Mat wasn’t making a bigger deal of complaining about the homework; he just shrugged and got on with it, receiving reasonably good marks, too. This strange world had clearly missed out on a fairly decent wizard in him.

 

That Friday afternoon she had an uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched as she walked back to the Gryffindor tower after her last class. Every time she turned to look, however, there was nobody there and reluctantly she tried to accept that she must be imagining things. Stress could do that to anyone, she supposed. But just before she gave the password before the Fat Lady, she chanced to glance over her shoulder and this time she was sure she saw a figure in a dark cloak vanish around the corner.

It could have been chance. There were lots of people wearing robes and cloaks in Hogwarts. It could have been a completely harmless passer-by but she didn’t believe it, not with the chilling feeling of malevolence the stranger left in their wake.

And indeed, when she entered the Gryffindor common room, she found her friends gathered around the Marauder’s Map, all looking up at her with a collective sigh of relief as the portrait swung shut behind her. “What is it?” she asked. “Was I being followed? I was, wasn’t I?”

“Fain,” Mat and Ron said as one.

“We didn’t know if we should come to you,” Hermione said, “but he seemed to be keeping his distance and who knows what he would have done if he’d realised he’d been identified.”

Egwene nodded, feeling a chill run down her spine. “You did the right thing.” She sat between Hermione and Mat. “Where’s he now? Is he still in the castle?”

“I think he’s heading out,” Harry said, still peering at the map he was holding. “We should do something!”

“It’s going to be too late to be out and about very soon,” Hermione protested. “We won’t all fit under the invisibility cloak, and if we’re caught…”

Egwene considered for a moment… Would channelling here have unforeseen consequences? She hadn’t sensed the ability in anyone else in the time she’d been here; the magic here was clearly something else entirely. But they had to stop Fain, whatever he was up to. She drew a deep breath and made her decision. “There are other ways to be invisible.”

 

* * *

 

A few minutes later they were hurrying out to the castle grounds, where the dot marking Padan Fain on the Marauder’s Map was slowly edging closer to the Forbidden Forest. “What’s he doing?” Harry muttered under his breath. “It’s like he’s… waiting for something.”

“Us?” Egwene suggested.

“You think we’re heading into a trap?” Hermione, skipping next to her, concealed by the illusion weave, asked.

“It’s possible,” Egwene replied. “And with Fain… I’d rather be prepared for anything.” She thought she heard Mat swear under his breath, and for once she agreed with the sentiment. “I won’t need to tell you to have your wands at the ready.” She embraced _saidar_ as well, just in case her fake-memories and false instincts betrayed her at a crucial moment.

 

Fain was waiting for them at the edge of the forest. Looking even more dirty and twisted than when Egwene had last seen him, he seemed to be staring right at her despite her illusion. “I can see you,” he called out in a singsong voice, made even more creepy by his ingratiating smile and the wild gleam in his eyes. “I can _smell_ you.”

“What are you?” Harry demanded.

The only response was a deranged giggle. Then Fain was lunging at Mat, snarling, as though the previous giggly demeanour had never been. Mat gave a startled yelp and dived out of the way, while three spells — two stuns and one disarm — hit Fain near-simultaneously. Egwene released the weave she had been preparing as she saw Fain crumple onto the grass. Hermione muttered another spell, and ropes appeared around the man’s wrists and ankles.

“What do we do with him now?” Ron asked.

“I don’t bloody know,” Mat replied, rubbing his left knee. “Can we just… leave him in there?” He nodded towards the Forbidden Forest.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Hermione said, eyeing Fain warily. “If he truly is as twisted as you say, leaving him in the Forest might have consequences.”

Egwene shook her head. “No, I agree with you.” She sighed. “I don’t _want_ him back in the— in our world, but if he belongs anywhere, it’s there. This… this _England_ of yours has problems enough without borrowing ours.”

“Can’t we just…” Mat made an evocative gesture, running a finger across his throat. “You know? Get rid of him for good? Light,” he added when people were staring at him in disbelief, “I don’t _want to_ kill anyone in cold blood, but… You guys don’t know what Fain is like! His presence alone, it corrupts! Literally.”

Harry was the first one to nod, but before he could speak, something caught all their attention. A tall arc stood a few yards into the Forest, shimmering not white and silver like the ones from the Accepted test, but dark bronze.

 

“What the bloody hell is that?” Ron muttered at the same time as Mat breathed, “Bloody ashes…”

_The way back will come only once._

Egwene shook her head again. “Change of plans,” she announced. Why it had appeared now, she couldn't tell; it clearly wasn't like the Accepted test _ter'angreal_ that made you choose between returning and something that was almost more important than anything else. “Mat, that’s our cue. We’re going home.” She wove the weaves of Air to pick up Fain’s still limp body and began to levitate it towards the arc. Perhaps that was the point, she mused. Perhaps they had been brought to this world to stop Fain. Although that didn't explain why Fain was here in the first place.

“Wait!” Hermione called out. “Are you certain it’s safe? Are you certain it’s not some trick of that Fain creature?”

Egwene smiled. “I’m certain,” she replied. “He doesn’t have the power to do something like that. He’s an exceptionally dangerous critter of contagious evil, but he’s still a critter.”

After a moment, Hermione nodded. And then she was hugging Egwene, whispering “Good luck!” in her ear.

To one side, Mat and Ron were looking at each other. “So…” Ron began. “Good luck mate,” he said, with a slightly awkward wave. “It was nice knowing you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Mat replied. “And you, Harry, and Hermione. All of you. Uh, you all just… keep up with the hero stuff, okay?”

“We will,” Hermione promised with a smile, and Harry and Ron nodded.

“Come on now,” Egwene called; she didn’t know how long the arc would stay and she was not going to miss it just because Mat was getting sentimental. Although she had to admit that she was going to miss Hermione, too… Assuming she would remember anything about this world once back in the real world. The thought that she might forget these people who had been sort of friends even though they didn’t really know each other was surprisingly sad.

Mat turned his back to the three others and hurried towards the arc, where Egwene was waiting with Fain. Egwene waved him through before her, then threw Fain after him… and finally stepped into the arc herself. Blinding light engulfed her…

 

And then she was back in her tent in the Aiel camp. There was no sign of Mat… or Fain for that matter, thank the Light. She scrambled to hold on to the memories of the adventure in the strange world called England, but already she could feel the details slipping. Except for one thing, she realised. She could still remember Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter even as the memories of the world surrounding them faded. She didn’t think she was ever going to forget them.

And the next time she saw Mat — at a distance, and neither of them made the effort to approach the other — their eyes met and she could see that Mat remembered their friends, who had been with them for such a brief time, too.


End file.
